


crash and burn, you're not alone

by Quire



Category: The Losers (Comic)
Genre: Character Death Fix, Fix-It, Happy Ending, M/M, if Indiana Jones can survive a nuclear bomb in a goddamn fridge, listen, thanks for coming to my ted talk, then this works JUST FINE, without even having comic book physics on his side
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 14:42:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16020044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quire/pseuds/Quire
Summary: Cougar is holding a fucking bomb and Jensen -And Jensen -“Fuck,” he says, and -- what the hell.  What the hell. They’ll probably both be dead in a few seconds anyway.





	crash and burn, you're not alone

“ _Motherfucker_ ,” Jensen says, and he falls to his knees, nearly collapses into Cougar’s arms.

They don’t hug that often.  They just don’t. Not manly enough, against the bro code, whatever.  But with Cougar’s breath rattling against his shoulder - with Cougar warm in his arms but limp, so weak - Jensen can’t help but recall the last time, vividly, Cougar jumping him swiftly enough to make Jensen say stupid things about _heterosexuality_ and Jesus, if he’d ever come closer to breaking DADT - - -

Cougar had been strong, then.  Not, you know.  Dying.  And everything hadn’t smelled like blood, like gunfire and blood, thick and choking and filling his mouth with iron. The floor hadn’t been slick with it, their stupid wetsuits hadn’t - and now they’re here and Cougar is holding a fucking _bomb_ and talking about _peace_ and Jensen -

And Jensen -

" _Fuck_ ,” he mutters again, and what the hell.  They’ll both be dead in a few seconds anyway.  Jensen waits for Cougar to lift his head and then he kisses him.  Hard.

Harder than he meant.  Cougs is frozen still for a second.  His stupid scraggly little moustache is like Velcro against Jensen’s chin and then suddenly his hands are curling into fists in Jensen’s wetsuit, and he’s pulling Jensen in closer.

And then they’re just kind of staring at each other, forehead to forehead, and Jensen’s glasses are bumping into Cougar’s nose and his mouth tastes like blood.

Jensen never figured out how to shut up.  "Fuck you,” he says now, voice shaking with the effort, with the intensity of it all, “ _fuck_ you, Cougs, you don’t get to make that call, you _don’t get to end it_ , you _complete fuckhead_ \--”

Cougar makes a sound, a choked half-laugh, bubbles of blood at his lips, and Jensen forces down something that wants to be a sob.  “Let me at the fucking nuke. Give it to me. I’m a fucking super genius, I can fix this. Just - just stay there and don’t - don’t fucking _die,_  Carlos fucking Alvarez, I swear to _God_.”

He can’t look Cougs in the eyes right now but that’s fine, he’s busy.  First he’s tying the disgusting trousers of the disguise around Cougar’s chest, nice and tight.  Keep the blood _in_ , just for another ten minutes, another twenty.  Keep all the things inside that should be. Not so much to ask.  

He knows his hands are shaking but Cougs doesn’t complain, just stares up at him with a thousand questions in his eyes that Jensen doesn’t have answers for.

And then he needs to make a timer.  A stupid timer. He used to make these when he was _five_ , scrabbling around with electronics in the shed, he can give them ten minutes, that’s heaps of time.  That’s _plenty_.  The wires shake in his hands and he has to cannibalise his stupid watch but it’s just a watch, Cougar can buy him another damn watch for his next birthday, they have to get _out_ of here --

“The kids, they’d be so fuckin’ pissed at you,” he says, and he feels a pressure on the back of his leg, Cougar’s hand steadying him when he’s shaking all over with tension and fury and fear.  “Fuckin’ - end it - fuckin’ stupidest idea I ever heard come out of your stupid mouth, and you’ve had a lot of stupid fucking ideas, but I’d kill you myself for this one if - oh fuck. Oh fuck.  I did it.”

There’s no blinking red numbers.  Just the second hand of the watch, sweeping crisply around to bring an end to everything in a flare of brilliant white.  Ten minutes. It has to be enough.

_I die, I block the pipe_ , Cougar had said, but Cougar is the king of stupid ideas and also the king of being wrong, so whatever.  “Such a fuckin’ drama queen, you know that?” Jensen tells him, spinning around on his knees to get both arms around him.  "We're gettin'  _out_.  Right now." 

Cougar grins at him weakly, and then Jensen’s world goes abruptly narrowed and fuzzy again because this time Cougar is kissing _him_. Soft but heated, promising - and then he’s gone and Jake whines a little and leans forward without realising it, wanting more.

“ _Vamos a morir_ ,” Cougar says, and then he says, “ _mi amor_ ,” and Jensen sways a little with shock and delight, and then Cougar pushes and topples them both into the open, waiting pipe.

 

* * *

 

Afterwards, Jensen doesn’t remember much about the swim.  They have the rebreathers, and Cougar isn’t doing a great job at swimming but Jensen _isn’t fucking leaving him_ so they just.  They just keep going.  That’s all they can do.  

Jensen’s rebreather tastes like blood and he’s swimming behind Cougs and he knows why the water’s cloudy around him, knows it would be red if there were any light here, and he doesn’t want to fucking think about sharks and the open ocean and that’s okay because right now he doesn’t have to think about anything except swimming, through a pipe that’s as long as a goddamn nightmare. If they get to the other end, they can worry about sharks there.  Sharks, and the crew, and whatever’s waiting out of this godforsaken birth canal of a pipeline.

Except: they don’t make it.  

There’s a feeling, first, a change in the air.  Jensen grabs Cougar’s ankle and tries to convey _I’m sorry_ and _I fucking love you_ and _goodbye_.

And then the side of the pipe comes at them both, hard and fast, and that’s the end.

 

* * *

 

There’s sand.

“... coarse and rough and gets everywhere,” Jensen mutters, because he’ll be dead before he’ll give up on mocking Anakin, and he spits it out of his mouth and tries to roll over, but everything hurts.  He can’t see shit.  

There’s a hulk of curved, blackened metal over him, but there’s light at one end.  His glasses are very broken. Everything _hurts_.

There’s sand and there’s a black lump on it and Jensen drags himself towards it, and he gets there with just enough energy left to see:  it’s Cougar. Half out of the pipe’s torn end. Still breathing. Still bleeding.

“Buddy, you’re gonna have to,” Jensen says, and coughs, and collapses on top of him, reaching out with one hand to find Carlos’s limp one in the sand.  “Breathe. Gonna… have to breathe.  Alone.  Right.”

Carlos doesn’t wake up, but he doesn’t stop breathing, and Jensen figures that’s as good as he’s going to get, so he drops his head on top of their joined hands and goes back to the black, heavy place that’s dragging him down.

 

* * *

 

The next time he wakes up, there’s no sand, and also, there’s no _Cougar_ , and Jensen would dramatically rocket to his feet if he could, but none of his muscles are working all that well right now.  Also, he still can’t see shit.

Except for Aisha.  He can see Aisha. She’s sharpening her knife and she looks up at him and smiles with a mouth full of teeth, and flips her knife up into a better grip.

Jensen slumps back into the pillow and awaits his shanking.  Crazy, murderous Aisha. Great. That’s just. Great.

No shanking occurs, though, and the next time he looks up, she’s gone.  It’s just an empty hospital room. Not even any computers within reach.

Jensen goes back to sleep.  It seems like the most sensible option.

 

* * *

 

“... have nothing against you, personally,” Aisha is saying, when he next drifts back up to the surface.  “You are a worthy man.”

“So was Clay.”  And _that_ makes Jensen’s eyes open immediately because _that voice is Cougar’s_ and he’d kind of just assumed Cougs was dead.  But no. No, he’s right there, no hat, less hair than before, bandaged all to fuck, sprawled in a chair at Jensen’s bedside. He probably shouldn’t be out of bed, looking like that.

“So was my father,” Aisha says coolly, and flicks her knife from hand to hand.  “Listen. He is stable. You are healing. Both of you will live. Thanks to me.”

Cougar folds his arms, in the way Jensen is pretty sure means _get to the point_ but also _fuck you, you’re probably right._ Well, that’s interesting.

“So?”

“So, maybe next time you have me in your sights, you don’t shoot,” Aisha says, as if it’s obvious, and tucks her knife away.

“Maybe.”  Cougar’s tone says plainly that he’s committing to nothing.

Aisha leans up on her tip-toes to kiss his weatherbeaten cheek, smirks at him, smirks at Jensen, pockets her knife, and walks out.

“Bad-ass chick,” murmurs Jensen, dreamily.

“You,” Cougar says, and suddenly he’s a lot closer, bandages and stubble and all, leaning right down into Jensen’s face. “You and I.  We must _talk_.”

“‘Kay,” Jensen says happily, “but can we make out first?”

Cougar doesn’t crack a smile, but he comes very, very close to it.  Jensen grins up at him like a puppy eager for a treat.

“... _si_ ,” says Cougar, and Jensen beams, and waits.

 

* * *

 

Aisha leaves them a note, and when they leave the hospital, battered, lightly toasted, but healing, they read it.  It says:

_Vaya con Dios, assholes._

Cougar laughs, and sets fire to it.  Jensen watches him, and thinks, fuck, for once in his life he made the right choice, back there in the pump room.  For once, he thinks, things are gonna work out okay.

**Author's Note:**

> the [Losers fandom discord](https://discord.gg/FjE7Zn4) is responsible completely for this tripe; thank you, you light up my life, discord friends. even when you make me write things that honestly the world could do without.  
>  


End file.
